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RELIGION AND PllOGKESS: 



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BY HENRY O. PEDDER. 



*L€t knowledge grow from more to more, 
Bat more of reverence in us dwell ; 
That mind and soul, according well, 
May make one music as before, 
But vaster." . . . 

—Tennyson. 




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NEW YORK: 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY, 

713 Broadway. 

1876. 



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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by 

E. P. BUTTON & CO., 
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



miTERSIDS, cambbidge: 

PKniTED BT H. 0. HOUOnTOX AND COMPAHT 



Eeligion and Progress. 



+ 



Notwithstanding the indifference witli which 
superficial observers are apt to regard the present 
conflict between Religion and Science, it is im- 
possible to examine carefully the questions in- 
volved, and not realize the importance of the 
contest as well as the intimate relationship which 
the discussion bears to our highest interests. 
Whatever the cause, and whatever the probable 
result, the fact still remains that the present age 
is one of intense intellectual activity, accompanied 
by a growing consciousness that the changes 
involved in our present condition must necessarily 
be of a momentous character. 

Problems which a hundred years ago were 
deemed finally settled and disposed of, have 
risen from their graves, and clamor for recon- 
sideration and readjustment. 



4 RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

According to Professor Huxley, "The scenes 
are shifting in the great theatre of the world. 
.... Men are beginning, once more, to awake 
to the fact that matters of belief and of specula- 
tion are of absolutely infinite practical importance, 
and are drawing ofi* from that sunny country 
^ where it is always afternoon ' — the sleepy hollow 
of broad indifferentism — to range themselves un- 
der their natural banners. Change is in the air. 
It is whirling feather-heads into all sorts of 
eccentric orbits, and filling the steadiest with a 
sense of insecurity. It insists on reopening all 
questions, and asking all institutions, however ven- 
erable, by what right they exist, and whether they 
are, or are not, in harmony with the real or sup- 
posed wants of mankind.'' 

Nor does this seem an exaggerated statement 
of the case. It is because the present ten- 
dency of science is largely iconoclastic that 
we need to realize the dangers which it threat- 
ens, as well as the advantages which it promises. 
The wholesale destruction of images is a com- 
paratively easy task, but the careful analysis and 
nice discrimination between what is intrinsic and 
extrinsic in religion, require something more 



KELIGION AND PROGRESS. 5 

than precipitancy of thought and rashness of 
judgment. 

In the intellectual as in the physical world, 
sudden upheavals may be unavoidable ; but they 
are certainly not desirable. Besides, the circum- 
stances which have called into existence the 
present powerful scepticism, are necessarily the 
very conditions which demand the most diligent 
exercise of our discriminative faculties. The 
intellectual activity which reveals to us so much 
that was false and shallow in our previous be- 
liefs, is per se the most imperative reason why 
we should endeavor to preserve the fundamen- 
tal facts of religion, independently of the errors 
of theological speculation. 

In other words, we have reached a stage in 
our intellectual development, when any attempt 
at indifference, or any effort to stand still, mean 
certain destruction to the system of thought 
which places itself in such a position. It is of 
no avail to argue, as is sometimes done, that 
the teachings of science will never change the 
religions of the world. The idea involved in 
such an argument is either the outgrowth of 
wilful blindness or the grossest ignorance. Chris- 



6 RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

tianity is to-day widely different from what it 
would have been without the philosophies of 
Plato and Aristotle, to say nothing of the more 
recent influences of German philosophers; and 
the principle holds equally good as to the present 
relationship between religion and science. The 
intellectual process which has busied itself for 
ages in the construction of Christian dogma, is 
not one whit less potent when applied to the 
encroachments of scientific on religious thought. 
In their last analysis they are both the products 
of the same law of change, the same principle 
of gradual growth, the same indestructible long_ 
ing of the human mind which nothing but the 
acquisition of truth can satisfy. 

It is true, as we approach intelligently the pres- 
ent antagonism between religion and science, we 
fail to discover a sufiicient reason for its exist- 
ence, while we are also reminded of the knights 
who fought about the color of a shield, of which 
neither had seen more than one side. There is 
a certain amount of one-sidedness in the contro- 
versy which forces these conclusions upon us ; 
but a moment's reflection will convince us that 
a simple discovery of this kind is hj no means 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 'i 

sufficient to remedy the evil. Admitting that 
the cause of the conflict is due to mutual mis- 
understanding, it is still true that the spirit of 
hostility, based on misunderstanding, which has 
so seriously impeded the world's progress in the 
past, may yet do so in the future. The blind 
and ignorant prejudice which heaped ignominy 
upon Copernicus while living, and which in- 
sulted his ashes when dead — to say nothing of 
the imprisonment of Galileo and the torture 
of Bruno — are retrogressive elements which we 
cannot too carefully exclude from any discus- 
sion pretending to deal with the claims of 
scientific thought. 

Indeed, the more clearly we examine these 
dark instances, in which prejudice and super- 
stition tyrannized over reason, the more clearly 
will we discover that a calm and fearless inves- 
tigation is the only means by which we can 
ever hope to harmonize the progressiveness of 
science with the fundamental verities of re- 
ligion. 

The more carefully we study the laws of our 
spiritual, no less than our intellectual, develop- 
ment, the more evident will it be that we can- 



8 RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

not permit the existence of tlie odlxnn theologi- 
eum without seriously impeding the cause of 
progress. In the wise arrangement of those 
laws which govern man's progress, it seems to 
be an essential condition that the human inind 
should be left entirely free to work out its 
problems independently of the existence of pre- 
viously-established dogmas and time-honored tra- 
ditions. In urging this, however, let us not fall 
into the error of supposing that an unrestricted 
spirit of inquiry is in itself a panacea for all 
ills, or even beyond all contingencies a condi- 
tion of progress. While we cannot emphasize 
too strongly the necessity of intellectual free- 
dom, we are equally bound to protest against 
that form of philosophical quackery which re- 
gards reason as the sole condition on which 
progress depends. Indeed, it is even possible 
that an unscientific interpretation of science 
may sit upon the human mind with a weight 
no less oppressive than the nightmare of super- 
stition. In one sense, it would be an act of in- 
tellectual suicide to raise a hue and cry against 
science because it compels us to change our 
views of God and Nature. In another sense, 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 9 

it would be equally an act of spiritual suicide 
.did we permit the finer sensibilities of our na- 
ture to be crushed by the iron hand of neces- 
sity^ compelling ourselves to exclaim, in view of 
that awful sense of loneliness and hopelessness 
which a relentless fatalism necessarily induces, 

**How strangely on my heart 
This night a sadness weighs, — an aching void. 
I want to cry, but wherefore? I would go, 
But whither? Homesick, but where is home?" 

With all its advantages, it is unfortunately 
true that science has conjured up a spectre 
which causes us to shudder as we look upon 
its ghastly expression. That the aj)parition will 
ever become so far materialized as to have a 
permanent habitation among us, is, I am aware, 
extremely doubtful. Nevertheless, as one of the 
present characteristics of scientific thought con- 
sists in the effort to establish this overshadow- 
ing fatalism, we cannot consistently exclude it 
from our estimate of tlie relationship Avliich 
science bears to religion. Granting, for the sake 
of argument, that the doctrine of irresistible 
necessity is far from being an established scien- 



10 BELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

tific fact, it is at least so far supported by many 
leading scientists, that it meets ns at the thresh- 
old of our present investigation. It is one 
thing to listen attentively to Professor Tyndall, 
when, in his memorable Belfast address, he de- 
clares that he has touched on debatable ques- 
tions and led us over dangerous ground ; but 
it is quite another to yield a blind assent to 
doctrines which do not necessarily result from 
the legitimate teachings of science. It is the 
principal characteristic of Professor Tyndall's 
address, that it possesses the advantage of 
bringing many important questions before the 
intellectual consciousness of the age ; whereas 
the tendency which confounds law with fatal- 
ism can only be considered as the result of 
hasty and imperfect generalization. Against the 
pseudo-scientific estimate which seeks to fetter 
our finer sensibilities, we are bound to argue 
that as there is a science of nature by means 
of which we interpret the physical conditions 
by which man is surrounded, so is there a 
philosophy of science, defining and determining 
the legitimate uses of scientific thought. 

Against the scientific assertion that there are 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 11 

no evidences of tlie existence of mind outside 
of matter, we are fully warranted in urging that, 
as long as the fact of mind exists, it is impos- 
sible to account for it on the ground of mate- 
rialism, without resorting to the absurd supposi- 
tion that there is more in the effect than in 
the cause. These and other kindred considera- 
tions suggest that careful discrimination which 
alone can guide us through the conflicting ele- 
ments of modern thought. By all means let 
reason be unrestricted, and let scientists pursue 
their investigations undisturbed ; but let us also 
remember that when w^e approach that border- 
land where religion, science, and philosophy 
meet, we are called upon to deal with subjects 
which necessarily elude the exact measurement 
of scientific analysis. Whatever may be thought 
of the substance of the soul, its phenomena are 
facts which admit of no dispute. To the man 
who carefully studies himself, they are as real 
and potent as the laws of gravitation or elec- 
tricity. It is true there is a sense in which 
psychology will always be open to the charge 
that it deals with subjects which for the most 
part transcend our finite comprehension ; but 



12 RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

this is far from invalidating its claim to be 
considered the most important of the sciences. 
Once admit the existence of those phenomena 
which we can only explain as effects of which 
the human soul is the cause, and the demands 
of psychology are beyond dispute. 

Besides, if logic can be considered a science 
because it teaches the rules of right-thinking, 
psychology is equally a science, since we can- 
not attain the principles of logic without pass- 
ing through the very phenomena with which 
psychology pretends to deal. If the cultivated 
study of logic makes us skilful reasoners, the 
cultivated study of psychology will just as 
surely enable us to become better acquainted 
with ourselves, at the same time demonstrating 
more and more fully the existence of those 
spiritual faculties which, besides constituting the 
basis of all religious thought and feeling, ne- 
cessitate the cultivation of our emotional as 
well as our rational nature. As we survev the 
present attainments of Science, and take into 
account its magnificent promises for the future, 
I cheerfully admit that we are bound to en- 
dorse the poet's sentiment : 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 13 

**The mind of man is this world's true dimension, 
And knowledge is the measure of the mind." 



To any one who examines tlie subject care- 
fully, it must be evident that reason has always 
been, and must always be, the great motive 
power of human progress. We cannot appre- 
ciate too heartily the usefulness and supremacy 
of reason ; but this is not all. 

If we admit that there is something grand and 
noble in intellectual culture, we must also ad- 
mit that there is a beauty pertaining to senti- 
ment which we can ill afford to dispense with, — 
a beauty, it may be, which eludes the perception 
of a cold intellectual nature, but which is, never- 
theless, equally with reason, an essential condi- 
tion of human progress. 

If, on the one hand, we proudly point to 
science, ascending higher and yet higher the 
dizzy heights of knowledge, and from her ex- 
alted position measuring tjie heavens and an- 
alyzing the chemical substances of the sun, 
we cannot deny that there are other demands 
peculiar to our nature, which a purely intel- 
lectual diet can never satisfy. After we have 



14 KELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

risen to the siiblimest view of tlie universe, and 
have become lost and bewildered in contemplat- 
ing the wonderful arrangement which connects 
the various chains of sequence under the uni- 
formity of correlation and continuity — after we 
have again and again turned to the vast prob- 
lem merely to feel ourselves more and more sur- 
rounded with mystery at every step — it surely 
is encouraging to feel that, although the widest 
scientific knowledge fails to reveal more than a 
faint outline of God's existence, we may at least 
feel his presence * in our souls, elevating and 
purifying our afi'ections, and at the same time 
investing life with an infinite meaning and a 
significant beauty. 

In other words, while we concede the su- 
premacy of reason, we cannot deny that there 
are deep emotional experiences and profound 
spiritual agitations peculiar to our nature, for 
which science, in its ordinary sense, has no 
response. 

It is true there have been instances, as in the 
Stoical philosophy, when a purely intellectual 
culture produced some rare examples of char- 
acter and human greatness. The characters of 



KELIGION AND PROGRESS. 15 

Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus will always oc- 
cupy prominent positions in the world's history, 
and it is therefore but simple justice that we 
should pay the respect due to these illustrious 
specimens of the school of Zeno. In admitting, 
however, that there is a greatness in the best 
representatives of Stoicism which fairly demands 
our admiration, we cannot deny that it is a 
greatness purchased at the sacrifice of some of 
the best and finest feelings of our nature. 

"Be like the promontory against which the 
waves continually break, but it stands firm, and 
tames the fury of the waters around it," "^ is an 
excellent precept ; but in the largest sense of 
human development it is not enough. It ad- 
mirably sets forth the rule of conduct observed 
by a philosopher who, in the midst of great 
moral corruption, preserved his own manliness 
and integrity ; but it does not meet the ordi- 
nary demands of human nature. It is impos- 
sible to deny the greatness of this iilustrious 
emperor and eminent philosopher; but it is 
equally impossible to shut our eyes to the fact 
that even in the midst of his intellectual and 

* Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. 



16 RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

moral attainments, he was invariably overshad- 
owed by that spirit of sadness which is the in- 
evitable result of Stoicism. It is well that we 
should pause before this noble soul, and, in our 
admiration, derive those influences which will 
most assuredly elevate and ennoble us ; but it is 
equally well that we should discriminate care- 
fully between Marcus Aurelius as an exceptional 
character, and Marcus Aurelius as the direct 
product of Stoicism. I know that the Stoical 
philosophy, in attempting to cultivate virtue 
without hope, possesses a certain charm which 
we cannot fail to appreciate. It is, indeed, a 
grand achievement, when the intellectual nature 
so thoroughly predominates as to bring the 
whole man under its control ; but it is an un- 
healthy condition nevertheless. Because it is 
divorced from sentiment, Stoicism mars the 
beauty of the world, and bids the human soul 
drift into sadness and despair, rather than 
encourage those dreams and aspirations which 
emanate from all true religion and all sound 
philosophy. While the Stoics are correct in 
discountenancing fear, they are incorrect in sup- 
pressing feeling. 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 11 

There is a sense in wliich it is perfectly true 
to say that the more we know of the laws 
which govern the universe, and the nearer we 
come, through such knowledge, to the God who 
made those laws, the less cause will we have for 
fear ; but it is not true that the more we know, 
the feebler must be our hope. The scientific 
statement that God is unknowable, may, for the 
moment, stagger our faith and diminish our re- 
ligious enthusiasm ; but, we may depend upon 
it, there will come a reaction in favor of relig- 
ion and the reality of those dreams of peace 
and beauty which our spiritual consciousness 
suggests. Besides, the mode of reasoning which 
asserts that God is unknowable, assumes neces- 
sarily that He is already partially known, and 
thus becomes its own contradiction. Indeed, 
it places science in the anomalous position of 
asserting that a thing is unknowable, of which 
we know nothing. 

Without a partial knowledge, is it not simply 
impossible to predict probable consequences? If 
we know nothing of God — being completely 
without evidences as to His character and exist- 
ence— ^where do scientists derive the premises of 



18 RELIGION AND PKOORESS. 

their argument by wliicli they seek to prove 
that He is unknowable ? Surely, the more care- 
fully we examine the subject, the more clearly 
must it appear that absolute nescience is as in- 
compatible with science as it is with religion. 
Reduced to its last analysis, the assertion that 
God is unknowable is a simple absurdity, and 
can only exist where scientists and philosophers 
are wilfully blind to the first principles of rea- 
soning. It is one thing for scientists to repudi- 
ate the anthropomorphic conceptions with which 
theology has surrounded the Ruler of the uni- 
verse ; but it is quite another to pronounce the 
whole subject of theological speculation an idle 
and profitless dream. 

Admitting that an increasing scientific knowl- 
edge w411 necessarily dissipate many of the form- 
ulas under which theologians have sought to 
render God comprehensible, there must always 
remain a sense in which the God of the scien- 
tist will resemble the God of the Christian. Be- 
cause the one proceeds from a scientific convic- 
tion, and the other from a religious impression 
strengthened by revealed religion, there must be 
a degree of unlikeness between them ; but be- 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 19 

cause they botli, as to tlieir fundamental princi- 
ples, appeal to the fact of human consciousness, 
there must be a likeness and sympathy between 
them. In other words, once let us succeed in 
divesting the subject of all irrelevant and extra- 
neous issues, and the verdict of science and phi- 
losopliy, no less than the verdict of religion, will 
be, that He who ^'laid the foundations of the 
earth, and shut up the sea with doors, saying. 
Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further," is 
also He who "hath put wisdom in the inward 
parts, and hath given understanding to the 
heart." ^ 

Nor is it of any avail to urge that the relig- 
ious sentiment belongs to the infancy of the 
race, while science is the product of maturity. 
Confessedly religion is as old as the history of 
the human race, while science is yet in its in- 
fancy ; but this can only be regarded as an 
indication of their respective uses. While sci- 
ence can claim, in some respects, an ascendancy 
over religion, it is the merest folly to suppose 
that it can ever supersede it. 

*Job, xxxvii. 4, 8, 11, 30. 



20 RELIGION AND PROGKESS. 

The advancement of science will necessitate 
many important changes, but to suppose that 
this involves the destruction of tliose instincts 
of our nature which express themselves in re. 
h'gion, is simply to ignore the dictates of rea- 
son and common-sense. Correctly appreciated 
and properly understood, the change of ideas 
which characterizes the growth of scientific 
thought is a winnowing process, and nothing 
more. In one respect, it is subject to that in- 
herent progressiveness of the human mind which 
renders it impossible for the world to stand 
still ; in another respect, it is subject to tliat 
indestructibility of truth which gives such mean- 
ing to the intellectual filiation of mankind, and 
which also admonishes us to welcome every con- 
tribution to the common stock of knowledge. 
The duty of man as man is thought^ and we 
cannot afford for a moment to impede its ac- 
tion. Instead, therefore, of wringing our hands 
in despair, and looking tremblingly on the ad- 
vancement of science, there is every reason why 
we should regard it as a sublime triumph of the 
human intellect. Instead of predicting ruin and 
disaster from the encroachments which science 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 21 

is making on theology, we ought rather to con- 
gratulate ourselves on the evidences of such 
intellectual activity. Look not moumfully into 
the past, but wisely improve the present, is 
equally in accordance with the interests of relig- 
ion, science, and philosophy. 

But let us not be deceived. If we are living 
in a more advanced condition than our ances- 
tors, we are only so situated in obedience to 
that genera] law which assigns to each age its 
characteristics and responsibilities. If it is true 
that in approaching the manhood of the world, 
we are gradually laying aside the dreams of 
childhood, it is equally true that, in the substi- 
tution of knowledge for conjecture, we cannot, 
without serious detriment, lay aside the claims 
of our emotional nature. 

Up to a certain point, the scientific concep- 
tion which we embody under the name of Force, 
is all very well, and answers a useful purpose ; 
but, after all, it is merely a question of time 
when the ablest scientist will be bound to 
admit that he is surrounded by a mysterious 
Power which he cannot reduce to the dimen- 
sions of pure reason. It is only a question of 



22 RELIGION AND PKOGRESS. 

time when the most gigantic intellects will feel 
themselves bound to fall back on things hoped 
for and nnseen. As Bayard Taylor has well 
expressed it : 

*'If we look up 
Beyond the shining form wherein Thy love 
Made holiest revelation, we must shade 
Our eyes beneath the broadening wing of Doubt, 
To save us from Thy splendor. All we learn 
From delving in the marrow of the earth. 
From scattering thought among the timeless stars, 
From slow-deciphered hieroglyphs of power 
In chemic forces, planetary paths, 
Or primal cells whence all Thy worlds are born, 
But lifts Thee higher, seats Thee more august, 
Till Thou art grown so vast and wonderful. 
We dare not name Thee, scarce dare pray to Thee. 
Yet what Thou art Thyself hast taught us: Thou 
Didst plant the ladders which we seek to climb, 
Didst satisfy the heart, yet leave the brain 
To work its own miracles, and read 
Thy thoughts, and stretch its agonizing hands 
To grasp Thee." 

Of com'se, it will always be possible, notwith- 
standing this relativity between reason and sen- 
timent, for a certain class of sceptical thinkers 
to sneer at the function of religion, and ridicule 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 23 

the idea of its possessing any value or utility. 
The inability of these superficial thinkers to 
discover any meaning or usefulness in this phase 
of consciousness is, however, no evidence that it 
is valueless. As we go back into the past, and 
trace the various shapes that superstition has 
assumed, we certainly learn many important les- 
sons from the development of the religious in- 
stinct in exact parallelism to the intellectual 
improvement of the race; but this, instead of 
demonstrating the uselessness of religion, proves 
most conclusively its power of expansion and 
adaptability to all conditions of human progress. 
Were religion merely an evanescent phenome- 
non, growing out of man's earlier and unen- 
lightened conditions, it would have disappeared 
long ago from the civilized world. Instead of 
this, however, it has traversed the ages, grow- 
ing brighter with every intellectual advance. 

Proportionally as the human mind has risen 
to its highest attainments, just so surely has 
there come an encouraging conviction that there 
is an intimate sympathy between the yearnings 
of our spiritual nature and the God who made 
them. We may not be able to explain the 



2i RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

manner in which this intercourse is effected, but 
we do know from experience that it belongs to 
the nnderljdng realities of spiritual phenomena. 
We may not be able to demonstrate satisfacto- 
rily the relationship between the objective act 
of worship and the subjective state of our con- 
sciousness ; but we do know that there is a very 
real and intimate relationship between them. 

Independently of all creeds, seasons, or places, 
we do know that there is a sense in which the 
deep and tender feelings of the soul react upon 
and beautify our life and character. The deeper 
the feeling, the stronger the influence. 

Or, to put the subject somewhat differently, 
while the grandest attainments of reason are but 
so many conditions, reminding us, in a measure, 
of the labors of Sisyphus, thei-e seems a beauti- 
ful compensation in that law of our nature which 
harmonizes thought with feeling, and which, 
from the necessities of the case, causes the re- 
lationship between reason and sentiment to be 
strictly supplementary. It is true there are times 
when the rational and sentimental elements in 
our nature exhibit a tendency to encroach on 
each other, but this is no proof that they are 



RELIGION AJSTD PROGRESS. 25 

mutually destructive, or that their respective 
spheres are not equally a necessity to man. 

If, after all our intellectual attainments, it is 
true, as shown by Kant, that every rational 
demonstration of God's existence involves a con- 
tradiction, it is certainly encouraging to believe 
that faith is not without its advantages. Ac- 
cording to an eminent authority, " If the attempt 
to grasp the absolute nature of the Divine Ob- 
ject of religious thought thus fails on every side, 
we have no resource but to recommence our 
inquiry by the opposite process, — that of inves- 
tigating the nature of the human subject. Such 
an investigation will not, indeed, solve the 
contradictions which our previous attempt has 
elicited ; but it may serve to show us why they 
are insoluble. If it cannot satisfy to the full 
the demands of reason, it may at least enable 
us to lay a reasonable foundation for the right- 
ful claims of belief. If, from an examination 
of the laws and limits of human consciousness, 
we can show that thought is not, and cannot 
be, the measure of existence; if it can be shown 
that the contradictions w^hich arise in the at- 
tempt to conceive the infinite have their origin, 
2 



2b RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

not in the nature of that we would conceive, 
but in the constitution of the mind conceiving; 
that they are such as must necessarily accom- 
pany every form of religion, we may thus pre- 
pare the way for a recognition of the separate 
provinces of Reason and Faith." ^ 

Nor is it requisite, in admitting this, that we 
should diminish one iota the lemtimate claims 
of reason. To prevent misunderstanding and 
confusion, it is simply requisite to discriminate 
carefully between a process of thought which 
can only argue within the circle of things 
known, and that function of faith which predi- 
cates the existence of God because the idea re- 
sponds to a feeling imbedded in the inmost 
recesses of our consciousness. 

In this connection, I am aware how great an 
opportunity is still afforded those who seek to 
reduce everything to a mathematical certaintj^, 
to ask us how we know that this sentiment or 
act of faith indicates anything more than an 
illusory phase of our consciousness. Excluding, 
for the moment, the evidences of revealed relig- 

* Limits of Religious Thoiiglit. — Manscl. 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 27 

ion, it does seem somewhat diflficult to answer 
this objection conclusively. At least we may, 
however, answer it partially, — possibly with sat- 
isfaction to those who refuse to have their 
mental vision blurred by the sophistries of Pyr- 
rhonism. 

The use and supremacy of reason I have 
already admitted ; but while we recognize the 
importance of this noblest of man's attributes, 
it is also well that we should subject our ideas 
of reason to a process of reasoning. Having 
done this, we necessarily discover that the 
proper province of reason, in dealing w^ith sub- 
jects where religion is concerned, is to perform, 
for our religious ideas, the same office as that 
which chemistry performs in dealing with mate- 
rial substances, viz., that of analysis or decom- 
position. 

Without in any way abandoning the princi- 
ples of reason, we are, from the very nature 
of religious phenomena, compelled to seek some 
antecedent condition of faith from» which reason 
proceeds, and with which it is bound, in the 
long run, to harmonize its discoveries. 

Whatever the attainments of reason may be. 



28 RELIGION AND PKOGRESS. 

there is no escape from the conclusion, not only 
that every act of reason implies an act of faith 
as its necessary accompaniment, but also that 
there are truths which we discern without rea- 
soning, and which, because they rest on the 
power of intuition, cannot, by any process of 
reasoning, be demonstrated. Thus we know, 
but cannot prove, that a part is Jess than the 
whole ; that an effect implies a cause ; that a 
straight line is the shortest line between two 
points ; and that if equal quantities be taken 
from equal quantities, the remainders will be 
equal. Truths of this ckss are obviously inde- 
pendent of our reasoning powers. They are, it 
IS true, dependent on i ^tellectual perception, but 
it is the perception which springs spontaneously 
from our minds, as an intuitional belief, and can- 
not, therefore, be strictly considered a process of 
reasoning.'^ Independently of the results of rea- 

* In making this statement, I would not be understood 
as attempting to revive the Platonic doctrine of innate 
ideas; it being simply my aim to discriminate between 
certain judgments and conceptions which are necessarily 
developed as soon as the mind awakens to the requisite 
conditions, and those labored results of a strictly rati- 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 29 

son, the reality of tliese relations is indisput- 
able ; tliey are their own evidences, and receive 
no additional weight from the intellectual pro- 
cess which enables us to think critically, and 
which also enables us to analyze our own men- 
tal processes for the purpose of discovering why 
tliese relations are everywhere and necessarily 
present. 

I am aware that the power to know involves 
a philosophical scrutiny of the grounds and 
trustworthiness of all knowledge and belief, but 
even this does not deny the possible existence 
of certain truths which cannot be subjected to 
the ordinary process of rational demonstration. 
It is obviously truths of this class to which 
BufRer alludes when he says, " They are propo- 
sitions so clear that they can neither be proved 
nor attacked by any propositions more clear than 
themselves." Sir William Hamilton also evi- 
dently means the same class of truths, when he 

ocinative process, which come more directly within the 
limits of experimental philosophy. Among the former I 
place— apparently, to me, with the sanction of reason — 
the fundamental principles of our religious conscious- 
ness. 



30 RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

says tliey are '' incomprehensible^'''^ by this term 
meaning tliat we know the fact, but cannot give 
the reason. Besides, not only is the reality of 
being affirmed through the medium of conscious- 
ness, but the relations of being and the laws of 
th.inking and feeling are in the same manner as 
necessarily established. In other words, philoso- 
phy, in asserting its own j)ossibility, asserts in 
the same breath the truthfulness of conscious- 
ness, and the value of those perceptions which 
are no less acts of knowledge, because they em- 
anate from conditions of faith or feeling. Man 
is a spirit, and, in the highest sense of his devel- 
opment, depends on those spiritual forces which 
superficial thinkers are so apt to overlook in 
their endeavors to manufacture, rather than dis- 
cover, truth. To use the language of one who 
has given much thought to the laws which 
govern the human mind and influence the con- 
ditions of progress, ''It is a truth, and not an 
idle phrase, that man does not live by bread 
alone ; that it is his privilege to live by aspira- 
tion, hope, and love, to be moved by ideal im- 
pulses which cause him to check the impulses of 
a lower self, to forego the transient pleasure of 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 31 

sense, and passionately strive after the nobler 
pleasures of heart and intellect. We all place 
before ourselves the ideal of a noble life, — the 
type of a grander character than our infirmities 
enable us to realize ; and we do not look on 
that ideal as a fiction, — on that type of char- 
acter as a falsehood, — because we fail to realize 
it. Like the typical laws of physical processes, 
these conceptions are solid truths, although they 
only exist as ideals ; and he who imagines their 
validity impugned because human nature can but 
imperfectly realize them, is as ignorant of life 
as he would be who should deny the validity of 
natural laws because of the perturbations observ- 
able in natural events." "^ It is precisely because 
this ideal want in man's nature is so real and 
universal, that religion possesses such power and 
importance, and presents so strong a claim upon 
our attention ; it is precisely because there are 
certain demands inhering in human nature, 
which relate us to an order of things unap- 
proached by sense, that we need to recognize 
the existence and reality of our religious con- 

* Problems of Life and ^liiul, by George Henry Lewes. 



32 RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

sciousness as the only means whereby we can 
nndertand the laws of man's spiritual culture. 
After making every allowance for all the ex- 
travagances and absurdities that have been 
pei'petrated in the name of Religion, and, after 
admitting the partial darkness which more or 
less surrounds all spiritual phenomena, we are 
bound to recognize the usefulness and impor- 
tance of that synthesis between thought and feel- 
ing without which our religious consciousness 
would be impossible. (Conceding the fact that 
the world of sense holds man to its realities, 
even in our moments of purest feeling and 
most refined reasoning, it is no less true that 
the condition of thought and feeling, by means 
of w^hich we project our individuality into a 
sphere of spiritual forces, is quite as real as 
those sense-perceptions by means of which we 
realize our relationship to the world of matter. 
However much we may differ as to the ultimate 
position of psychology as a science, we cannot, 
if we are candid in our investigations, deny that 
man is possessed of a dual consciousness, relat- 
ing him equally to sensual and super-sensual 
phenomena. It is true that sense-perceptions, 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 33 

because tliey are simpler and more easily ajopre- 
liended, are more easily reduced to scientific 
generalization ; but this, while it proves the 
necessarily slow progress of the science of the 
soul, in contrast to the rapid advance of phys- 
ical science, proves also the necessity of concen- 
trating all our energies on those laws of our 
spiritual growth, which are obviously of such 
vast importance. We say that science is in its 
infancy, and we unhesitatingly predict for its 
future a glorious career of conquest ; but if we 
thus believe in the boundless possibilities of the 
human mind in dealing with facts pertaining to 
the physical world, is it less reasonable to pre- 
dict an ever-increasing beauty in that form of 
our spiritual consciousness which elevates us into 
an atmosphere of purified thought and feeling ? 
Clearly, it is quite as much a condition of prog- 
ress that sentiment should beautify reason, as it 
is that reason should regulate sentiment. Cor- 
rectly understood and properly appreciated, they 
are the complements of each other, and cannot, 
under a process of healthy advancement, be sep- 
arated. We stand erect, calm, confident, when 
we seek truth through the analysis of reason ; 



34r RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

vre prostrate ourselves in. coiitrition, or we rise 
on the wings of pure and holy aspiration, when 
we seek God through the action of the religious 
sentiment ; but the difference between these atti- 
tudes cannot be distorted into proving that they 
are necessarily antagonistic, or even inimical. 
From the necessities of man's nature, and the 
requirements which they fulfil, they must differ 
in character, but it is a gross error to assert 
that the cultivation of the one necessitates the 
suppression of the other. 

Nor is it too much to claim that there is a 
sense in which sentiment is, perhaps, the deep- 
est and divinest element in human nature. It 
is the motive power of all that is most beauti- 
ful in art ; it is the cradle of all that is most 
elevating and ennobling in music and poetry ; 
it is the cause of all that is purest and best in 
the experiences of life ; and, as such, cannot be 
dwarfed or suppressed without producing the 
most disastrous consequences. 

Indeed, even if we admit that the demands 
of sentiment are in a measure subservient to 
the demands of reason, we do not thereby deny 
the claims which we urge on behalf of our 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 35 

emotional culture, and which, from their inti- 
mate relationship to the laws of spiritual devel- 
opment, enter so largely into the subject of 
our religious consciousness. It may be the busi- 
ness of science and philosophy to show us that 
sentiment can only be relied upon in so far as 
it is governed and directed by knowledge ; but 
it is not the business of either science or philos- 
ophy to attempt the destruction of that back- 
ground of human feeling from which the earliest 
devotional impulses of our ancestors sprang, and 
which still expresses itself in the religious ob- 
servances and ceremonials of an enlightened peo- 
ple. Without in the least attempting to dimin- 
ish the claims of science, there is a beauty 
beginning with mythology, and ending in the 
highest teachings of the purest religion, which 
we can ill afford to lose. We may feel, as we 
study the religious history of the world, that 
the lispings of the human soul have been very 
imperfect and distinct ; but we cannot, if we 
candidly examine the testimony, refuse to say, 
" The utterance does not perish which many 
peoples utter ; nay, this is the voice of God." 
It may be incumbent on science to teach us 



36 RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

that the whispering breeze and the fierce tor- 
nado are but the consequences of air moving 
with different degrees of Telocity, or that there 
is no generic difference between heat and cold; 
but it would be wholly unreasonable to insist 
that our every feeling must, therefore, be brought 
into harmony with scientific facts, and the lan- 
guage of poetry be limited to scientific defini- 
tions. As we advance in scientific knowledge, 
we must necessarily lay aside many ideas and 
impressions which take theii* rise in unscientific 
views of nature ; but this, while it changes our 
estimate of the conditions by which we are sur- 
rounded, can never render it useless that we 
should recognize the feelings which the phe- 
nomena of nature elicit as no less facts than 
the phenomena themselves. TTe live in an age 
which renders it almost impossible for us to en- 
ter, with proper appreciation, into the thoughts 
and feelings of that earlier age, when the awak- 
ening powers of the himaan mind expressed 
themselves in the childlike but beautiful lan- 
guage of mythology. Surrounded as we are by 
our railroads and telegi-aphic communications, it 
requires an extraordinary effort to place our- 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 37 

selves in sympathy with those primitive condi- 
tions when the fresh breezes of the dawn were 
greetings wafted across the golden threshold of 
the sky, and when the moon w^as transformed 
into Selene, rising, under the cover of night, to 
see and admire, in silent love, the beauty of the 
setting sun. 

By all means, let every hour witness fresh 
victories gained by science, but let us also cling 
fondly to that disposition of the human soul 
whicli, at an earlier age, having given us the 
childlike and beautiful dreams of mythology, 
still compels us, even in our moments of deep- 
est thought, to realize the existence of 

'* Those first affections, 
Those shadowy recollections, 
Which, be they what they may. 
Are yet the fountain-light of all our seeing." 

It is well that scientists should enter into the 
study of nature with the determination to ex- 
amine, ponder, and discover; but it is equally 
well that they who enter into an appreciation 
of the universe as the manifestation of God's 
love and wisdom, should at least receive the 



38 RELIGION AND PKOGKESS. 

respect and consideration whicli they deserve. 
As truly as it comes within the sphere of sci- 
ence to weave phenomena into unity, and to 
enlarge the idea that all things are governed by 
law, just so surely does it come within the 
sphere of religion to seek, in the world of na- 
ture, no less than in the soul of man, for those 
evidences which demonstrate the existence of a 
Supreme and Benevolent Ruler of the universe. 
Let us grant the pessimist's argument that there 
are innumerable imperfections in nature, and 
we are still safe in urging the validity of the 
argument from design and its attendant conse- 
quences. 

While we admit that there is a sense in 
which the rose-colored vision of early life dark- 
ens as we advance in knowledge, we are full}'' 
warranted in arguing that the degree may be 
imperfect, without in the least destroying the 
evidences in favor of the argument from design. 
The validity of this argument depends not upon 
the evidences of stationary perfection in nature, 
but upon those evidences which indicate a gen- 
eral outline of progressive conditions. 

Indeed, even if we confine ourselves to a his- 



RELIGION AND PK OGRESS. 39 

torical survey of man's condition, we cannot 
avoid the conclusion that, although his long and 
painful ascent from ignorance and degradation 
tell most powerfully against the prevalent idea 
of original perfection, there is nothing in these 
conditions which we cannot reconcile with the 
laws of progress, interpreted according to the 
principles of evolution. 

Surely, as we examine man and nature in the 
light of this vast process, in which progress is 
so gradual as to be almost imperceptible, it is 
not surprising that we find no such thing as 
absolute perfection. It is because all things 
strive to ascend, and ascend in their striving, 
that we believe most firmly in the existence of 
God, and in the boundless capabilities of man's 
nature. 

Occasionally we may meet with anomalies and 
contradictions which stagger us ; but this is no 
reason why we should abandon all hope. Let 
us admit that there is a partial truth in the late 
John Stuart Mill's protest against the benevo- 
lence of Nature ; ^ let us acknowledge that there 

*** Nature impales men, breaks them as if on wlieels, 
casts them to be devoured by wild beasts, burns them 



40 RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

are times when the sorrows and disappointments 
of life baffle and bewilder us ; but let us also 
hold firmly to the truth expressed in Whittiers 
beautiful lines : 

*^I see the wrong that round me lies, 
I feel the guilt within ; 
I hear, with groan and travail cries, 
The world confess its sin. 

'*Yet in the maddening maze of things, 
And tossed by storm and flood. 
To one fixed stake my spirit clings: 
I know that God is good. 

**I dimly guess, from blessings known. 
Of greater out of sight; 
And, with the chastened Psalmist, own 
His judgments, too, are^ right. 

''I long for household voices gone. 
For vanished smiles I long; 

to death, crushes them with stones like the first Chris- 
tian martyrs, starves them with hunger, freezes them 
with cold, poisons them by the quick or slow venom of 
her exhalations, and has hundreds of other hideous 
deaths in reserve, such as the ingenious cruelty of a 
Nabis or a Domitian never surpassed." — Three Essays on 
Religion, 



RELIGION AND PROGKESS. 41 

But God hath led my dear ones on^ 
And He can do no wrong. 

^'I know not what the future hath 
Of marvel or surprise, 
Assured alone that life and death 
His mercy underlies. 

''And if my heart and flesh 'are weak 
To bear an untried pain, 
The bruised reed He will not break, 
But strengthen and sustain. 

**And so, beside the silent sea 
I wait the muffled oar; 
No harm from Him can come to me 
On ocean or on sliore. 

*'I know not where His islands lift 
Their fronded palms in air; 
I only know I cannot drift 
Beyond His love and care. 

''O brothers! if my faith is vain, 
If hopes like these betray, 
Pray for me, that my feet may gain 
The sure and safer way. 

*'And Thou, O Lord! by wliom are seen 
Thy creatures as they be, 
Forgive me if too close I lean 
My human heart on Thee ! '* 



42 KELiaiON AND PROGRESS. 

The great master of logic evidently approaclies 
nature very miicli in the spirit in which a sur- 
geon would examine and dissect a dead body ; 
it is a purely intellectual operation, devoid of 
all feeding, and the result is visible. 

The poet, on the other hand, invests the sub- 
ject with that delicate charm which enables 
thought and feeling to beautify each other, 
and which also enables us to supply, by the 
synthesis of sentiment, the deficiencies growing 
out of the analysis of reason. Nor can we con- 
sistently argue that the conception of the poet 
is less likely to be true than the conception of 
the philosopher. Admitting, as every candid 
mind will, tliat Mr. Mill was, to some extent, 
authorized in attacking the superstition which 
regards nature as perfect, it is impossible for 
the same spirit of candor to deny the immense 
value of the poet's sentiment. It is true that 
nature perpetrates horrors, which, if men were 
or could be the authors of them, we should re- 
gard as crimes of great enormity ; but it is not 
true that there is no meaning or encouragement 
in the preponderance of good over evil, — no 
significance in those glimpses of the beautiful 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 43 

which appeal especially to the sensibility of 
poetic natures. In other words, even if we ad- 
mit that the argument from design can never 
attain the power of direct induction, we cannot 
deny that the weight of evidence is strongly in 
its favor. Indeed, even Mr. Mill admits this, 
when he says, "Whatever ground there is, rev- 
ehition apart, to believe in an Author of Na- 
ture, is derived from the appearances in the 
universe. Their mere resemblance to the works 
of man, or to w^hat man could do if he had 
the same power over the materials of organized 
bodies which he has over the materials of a 
watch, is of some value as an argument from 
analogy; but the argument is greatly strength- 
ened by the properly inductive considerations 
which establish that there is some connection, 
through causation, between the origin of the 
arrangements of nature and the ends they ful- 
fil ; an argument which is in many cases sh'ght, 
but in others, and chiefly in the nice and intri- 
cate combinations of vegetable and animal life, 
is of considerable strength." So, also, even 
Ilumc, notwithstanding his speculative unbe- 
lief, confesses that "No one can look up to 



44 RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

that sky witliout feeling that it must have been 
put in order by an intelligent being." Confin- 
ing ourselves to the more repulsive aspects of 
nature, it is but natural that we should some- 
times falter in our faith ; but just as surely as 
the day dispels the night, a wider and clearer 
appreciation of the laws of nature will rescue us 
from the Giant Despair. 

To some extent we are necessarily saddened 
by the unceasing conflict between good and 
evil ; but to a greater extent we are sustained 
and encouraged by the dictates of our better 
nature, and the well-founded belief that virtue 
will ultimately triumph over vice. 

Because (as the world is at present consti- 
tuted) suffering is an indispensable condition of 
progress, it may be true that we are always in 
the presence of a veiled spectre, whose business 
it is to remind us, as at the Egyptian festivals, 
that the last word is not spoken, that the enigma 
is not yet deciphered ; but this is surely no rea- 
son why we should banish our fondest dreams, 
and betake ourselves to the gloomy abodes of 
pessimism. Notwithstanding the limitations of 
our knowledge, the imperfections of our nature. 



KELIGION AND PROGRESS. 45 

and the sadness and sorrow wliicli enter so largely 
into human life, there must always remain a sense 
in which the greatest philosopher, no less than 
the innocent child, feels it a duty and a privi- 
lege to exclaim, " Our Father, who art in the 
heavens." 

Besides, even if we confine ourselves to the 
evidences derived from the historical side of 
the subject, we are compelled to admit that 
there is nothing more beautiful or instructive 
in history than the manner in which this in- 
stinctive longing of the human soul has trav- 
ersed all ages, and made itself felt under all cir- 
cumstances and conditions. Ages have changed, 
and many philosophical theses and theological 
dogmas have passed away ; but in no period of 
transition, in none of the many destructive and 
reconstructive processes which mark the progress 
of the world, has the life-giving power of relig- 
ion been destroyed. 

According to one of the leading thinkers of 
the present day, " No exposure of the logical 
inconsistency of its conclusions — no proof that 
each of its particular dogmas was absurd — has 
been able to weaken its allegiance to that ulti- 



46 RELIGION AXD PKOGKESS. 

mate veritv for wliicli it stands. After criticism 
has abolislied all its argumentSj and reduced it 
to silence, there has still remained with it the 
indestructible consciousness of a truth which, 
however faulty the mode in which it has been 
expressed, was yet a truth beyond cavil. . . . 
The truly religious element of religion has al- 
ways been good ; and that which has proved 
untenable in doctrine and vicious in practice, 
has been its irreligious element ; and from this 
it has been ever undergoing purification." ^ 

Nor is it necessary, in adopting this view, 
to denounce theology as useless. In their way, 
theological dogmas are extremely useful ; but we 
can no more limit religion to the circumscribed 
views of theologians, than we can concentrate 
the full glory of the sun within the retina of 
the human eye. In the one instance, as in the 
other, it is the merest fraction of light that is 
absorbed, and it is well that we should so un- 
derstand it. It is perfectly true that there is a 
sense in which religion and theology are insepa- 
rable ; but in admitting this, we merely empha- 

* ''First Principles of a New System of Philosophy." 
— Herbert Spencer. 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 47 

size the necessity of understanding where the 
relationship begins and where it ends. If an 
examination of tlie subject proves that religion 
expires when, the dogmas of theology are dem- 
onstrated to be false, then, of course, we are 
bound to regard the relationship as being of 
primary and vital importance. If, however, ex- 
perience proves that the relationship is only of 
secondary importance, and, at the same time, 
subject to modifications growing out of the laws 
whicli govern human thought, then are we fully 
warranted in looking calmly at the present un- 
settled condition of the theological world. We 
have no right to refuse a respectful hearing to 
the representatives of the Greek Church and the 
Old Catholics, when they meet in solemn con- 
ference to determine the procession of the Holy 
Ghost ; but we have a perfect right to say to these 
eminent divines, that they are simply repeating 
history in their futile attempts to reduce to a set- 
tled basis, questions which cannot be settled.*^ 
Tlieology of some kind we must have, but the 

*<'Tlic study of the master-minds of the lunnan race 
is almost equally instructive in what they achieved and in 
what they failed to achieve; and speculations which arc 



48 RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

estimate which regards theological speculations as 
weak and, for the most part, fruitless efforts to 
reduce the Infinite to the comprehension of the 
finite, is very different from the common error 
which confounds the intrinsic value of religion 
with the extrinsic value of theolog3\ Besides, 
suppose the fate of religion had depended on 
tlie truth of the speculations of the Christian 
Fathers,'^ what a deplorable condition we should 

far from solving the riddle of existence, have their use in 
teaching us why it is insoluble." — Mansel, ^letapTiysics. 

* According to Origen, the sun, moon, and stars are 
living creatures, endowed w^ith reason: 
^ "The stars move with so much order and so much 
intelligence, that in no degree is their onward course at 
any time seen to be impeded, so that is it not the ex- 
treme of all absurdity to say that so much order, and 
the observance of such great discipline and method, could 
be demanded or fulfilled by irrational things?" — De Prin- 
ciplis^ Vol. I. chap. 7. 

Clement of Alexandria alludes, with apparent assent, 
to a belief prevalent among the Greeks, that hail-storms, 
tempests, and similar phenomena, are due to the anger 
of demons and evil angels. — Stromaia., Book YI. chap. 8. 

According to Lactantius, it is the office of evil spirits to 
insinuate themselves into the bodies of men, thus causing 
disease and evil dreams. — Divine Institutes^ Bk. II. ch. 15. 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 49 

have been in long before this! Doubtless these 
early Christians believed that they were stat- 
ing truths which would stand the test of time; 
whereas the truth is that they were simply indulg- 
ing in vain and idle conjectures. As the world 
has grown wiser, and science has given us more 
intelligent cosmic theories, we lay aside, with a 
smile, these extravagant absurdities so seriously 
advanced under the sanction of theology ; but we 
can never outgrow the conditions which made 
these conjectures possible. In its last analysis, 
theology is the language in which religion ex- 
presses itself, and as such, notwithstanding its 
errors and failures, must always have an exist- 
ence. To deny its usefulness and importance is 
both unjust and unreasonable. To distinguish be- 
tween its claims and those of religion, is the dut}^ 
of the hour. Indeed, it may safely be said that 
the nice distinction which this latter condition 
requires, is, in the strictest sense, the principal 
duty of philosophy at the present time. To 
look manfully at the issues which are hourly 
gathering and gradually incrensing in impor- 
tance, we need something more than the weap- 
ons which theology furnishes. 
3 



50 KELIGION AND PK OGRESS. 

Admitting the comparative value of these 
defences, vre need to enlarge om* views; we 
need to acknowledge the uselessness of much 
w^hich passes under the gad) of orthodoxy; we 
need to penetrate beneath the rubbish of ages 
for those immortal flowers which, independently 
of all creeds, thrive in every human heart, made 
beautiful by the sunshine of heaven. Having 
ascended to the serene heights of philosophy, 
we need to break down all narrow prejudices, 
and, in a spirit of patience and toleration, 
apply ourselves to an examination of those car- 
dinal principles which underlie other religions 
as well as our own. In urging this broad defi- 
nition of religion, I am aware how many objec- 
tions will be urged against it; but we may be 
sure that the gradual growth of compai-ative 
mythology, and a better appreciation of the 
fundamental principles of religion, will more 
and more compel us to approach the subject in 
this broad and philosophical spirit. In fact, the 
very moment we refuse to regard other relig- 
ions with a feeling of affection, we necessarily 
deny God's presence in the realm of human 
thought, and, for the sake of satisfying a Phari- 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 51 

saic prejudice, reduce to a limited and distorted 
estimate, the order of God's providence. 

As Professor Max Miiller lias well said, "By 
unduly deprecating all other religions, we have 
placed our own in a position which its Founder 
never intended for it ; we have torn it away 
from the sacred context of the history of the 
world; we have ignored, or wilfully narrowed, 
the sundry times and divers manners in which, 
in times past, God spake unto the fathers by 
the prophets; and, instead of recognizing Chris- 
tianity as coming in the fulness of time, and as 
the fulfihuent of the hopes and desires of the 
whole world, we have brought ourselves to look 
upon its advent as the only broken link in that 
unbroken chain wliicli is rightly called the Di- 
vine government of the world. Nay, worse than 
this: there are people who, from mere igno- 
rance of the ancient religions of mankind, have 
adopted a doctrine more unchristian than any 
that could be found in the pages of the relig- 
ious books of antiquity, namely, that all the 
nations of the earth, before the rise of Chris- 
tianity, were mere outcasts, forsaken and for- 
gotten of their Father in heaven, M'itliout a 



52 RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

knowledge of God, without a hope of salva- 
tion. If a comparative study of the religions 
of the world produced but this one result, that 
it drove this godless heresy out of every Chris- 
tian heart, and made us see again, in the whole 
history of the world, the eternal wisdom and 
love of God toward all His creatures, it would 
have done a good work. And it is high 
time that this good work should be done. . . . 
I do not deny that the religions of the Baby- 
lonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Eomans were 
imperfect and full of errors, particularly in their 
later stages ; but I maintain that the fact of 
these ancient peoj^le having any religion at 
all, however imperfect, raises them higher, and 
brings them nearer to us, than all their works 
of art, all their poetry, all their philosophy. 
Neither their art nor their poetry nor their 
philosophy would have been possible Avithout 
religion ; and if we will but look without preju- 
dice, — if we will but judge, as we ought always 
to judge, with unwearying love and charity, — we 
shall be surprised at that new world of beauty 
and ti-uth which, like the azure of a vernal sky, 
rises before us from behind the clouds of the 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 53 

ancient mythologies." "^ Because religious ideas 
and sentiments have prevailed in all ages, indi- 
cating thereby their indispensability to man, we 
are bound to pursue our investigations, not as 
apologists or defenders of any sect or creed, but 
as earnest and unprejudiced investigators, seek- 
ing for a reliable basis on which to rest our 
ideas of the philosophy of religion. 

As an objection to this view, it may, per- 
haps, be argued that, as there have been in- 
stances of certain savages who, on their discov- 
ery, were found totally devoid of all religious 
ideas, the argument which starts from the uni- 
versality of the religious sentiment is, therefore, 
without foundation. Growing out of the con- 
clusions of some few eminent ethnographers, 
this view has gained rapidly within the last 
few years; but it is an error nevertheless. The 
fundamental defect in the reasonino^ of these 
objections is, that their definition of religion is 
altogether too narrow, while their conclusions 
are completely vitiated by their imperfect knowl- 
edge of savage life, and a very vague idea of 

* Lectures ou the Scicucc of religion. 



54 RELiaiON AND PK OGRESS. 

what tliey are seeking to discover. For the 
most part, their narrow definition has the fanlt 
of identifying religion rather with particular 
developments than with the deeper sentiment 
which underlies and renders such develoj^ments 
possible. The complete transformation in our 
ideas, which necessarily follows the enlargement 
of scientific thought, may and will cause us to 
look back in astonishment on the earlier and 
unscientific views of life and nature; but we 
may safely depend upon it that the knowledge 
which reveals electricity and gravitation as laws 
inhering in matter, will also reveal the inde- 
structibility and indispensability of man's relig- 
ious consciousness. Because we are no longer 
disturbed by visions of fitful interference with 
the order of nature, it surely does not follow 
that we can see nothing in the operation of law 
but the cold and cruel action of a relentless 
fatalism, — nothing in the yearning of our spir- 
itual sensibilities but that cruel mockery which 
elevates our hopes merely for the pleasure of 
disappointing us. 

''And though we wear out our life, alas! 
Distracted as a homeless wind, 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 55 

In beating where we may not pass, 
In seeking what we shall not find," 

Instinctively we feel this cannot be ; and as 
we turn onr attention to those noble specimens 
of humanity wdio, in all ages, have stood upon 
the mountain-peaks of thought, and stretched 
their hands toward heaven in a sublime and 
encouraging faith, just so surely do w^e feel 
that there is a meaning in, and must be an 
eternity for, those holy aspirations by means of 
which we recognize the likeness of the divine 
in the human. In the words of the poet, 

** Shall man be left forgotten in the dust, 

When Fate, relenting, bids the flower revive? 
Shall nature's voice, to man alone unjust, 

Bid him, though doomed to perish, hope to live? 

''Is it for this fair virtue oft must strive 
With disappointment, penury, and pain? 
No! heaven's eternal spring shall yet arrive, 
And man's majestic beauty bloom again. 
Safe through the ceaseless years of love's eternal 
reign." 

In other words, if we are compelled by sci- 
ence to accept tlie supremacy of law as an 



56 RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

article of our creed, so are we compelled by 
philosophy to guard carefully the interests of 
our higher culture, at the same time distin- 
guishing between that orderly sequence in 
nature which indicates the existence of an 
Intelligent Cause, and that blind fatalism of 
pseudo-scientists, which, besides its logical in- 
consistencies, leads inevitably to atheistical de- 
spair. 

It is one of the greatest advantages of scien- 
tific thought, that, in enlarging our views of 
nature, it compels us to exclude all ideas of 
caprice on the part of the Creator and Pre- 
server of the universe; but this is a very dif- 
ferent estimate from that which induces many 
an earnest but mistaken thinker to pronounce 
religion a delusion, and the universe a mere 
machine, beneath whose enormous wheels and 
ponderous hammers man is in constant danger 
of being crushed to powder.'^ It is perfectly 
true that the destinies of nations, no less than 
the lot of individual man, — the sparrow's flight, 
no less than the orbits of the planets, — are all 

*See especiaUy "The Old Faith and the New."— 
Strauss. 



RELIGION AND rHOGEESS. 57 

subject to law; but it is equally true that we 
are, without in any way diminishing the claims 
of science, entitled to urge the possibility of 
spiritual intercourse between the creature and 
the Creator; it is equally true that we are 
warranted in arguing the possible coexistence 
of law and religion. 

Indeed, if the idea that we are living in a 
God-governed universe is not an idle dream, 
it follows of necessity that it is precisely in the 
sphere of our religious consciousness that we 
may most reasonably expect the highest revehv 
tions of God's wisdom through the instrumen- 
tality of law. Whatever our opinions may be 
as to the likeness or unlikeness of the laws 
governing matter and spirit, it is simply impos- 
sible to concede the existence of Jaw in the 
material world, and not look for the existence 
and operation of law in the spiritual world 
also. While there are material causes produc- 
ing their natural consequences, there must also 
be spiritual laws connecting cause and effect. 
In the psychical as in the physical world, 
we are subject to limitations, because we are 
the subjects of law ; but it would be a simple 



58 RELIGION AND PROGKESS. 

absurdity to deny the usefulness and impor- 
tance of religion on this account. After we 
have fairly examined the methods and nses of 
science, we are bound to admit that there is 
nothing in the scientific process which can ever 
take the place of religion. After we have con- 
ceded the immense value of the utilitarian side 
of science, there must always exist a large re- 
eiduum of scientific thought, which we can only 
understand by bridging over the chasm between 
the visible and the invisible, and entering on 
that border-land where science and philosophy 
meet. 

Xor can it be consistently argued that this 
view which assigns to philosophy the position 
of arbiter between science and religion, is either 
unfounded or objectionable. From the nature 
of their respective spheres, religion and science 
are confined to specialties, w^hereas philosophy 
embraces them both, insisting, at the same time, 
that the only correct estimate consists in harmo- 
nizing the facts of science with the grand and 
sacred experiences of religion. 

I know that, in consequence of a misappre- 
hension, there exists a growing disposition to 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 59 

regard philosophy as a useless relic of the past. 
Tliat this is, however, an error, it needs but 
very little penetration to discover. As we sur- 
vey the history of philosophy, it is true that 
there is a great difference between the manner 
in which the philosophers of Greece entered 
on their work of physical speculation, and the 
manner in w^hicli modern scientists pursue their 
investigations. 

It may even be true that we are called upon 
to pronounce as utter faihires all those efforts 
which, expressing themselves in the theories of 
Thales, Anaximenes, and Ileraclitus, and rising 
at last into the physical treatises of Aristotle, 
have contributed so little to the advancement 
of science. With all their wonderful intellec- 
tual activities and brilliant attainments, the phi- 
losophers of Greece can lay very little chiim to 
the development of that inductive process Avhich 
is so jiLstly the pride of the nineteenth century. 
In this direction we cannot conceal their short- 
comings, but in admitting this w^e by no means 
cancel the debt wdiich we ow^e to philosophy. 
While we admit their many faihires, we cannot 
deny tliat it is to her pliilosophers that Greece 



60 RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

owes the greatness of that intellectual empire 
on which the sun never sets; while we admit 
the many inconsistent guesses which philoso- 
phers propounded as explanations of physical 
phenomena, w^e cannot deny that, unless philos- 
ophy perpetually renews science, and gives it a 
stimulus in the right direction, there is great 
danger that physical speculation would rudely 
set aside the demands of our higher nature as 
being of little or no account. If w^e need 
science to explain the phenomenal laws of the 
universe, we certainly need philosoj)hy to pro- 
tect the demands of those phenomena which 
elude scientific analysis. In fact, from the na- 
ture of the elements with which it busies itself, 
philosophy must always be to science an indis- 
p.ensable ally and an invaluable guide. 

The old questions asked in the youth of the 
world have lost none of their meaning in view 
of our scientific attainments. We have, in many 
instances, grown wiser as we have grown older; 
but, we may depend upon it, there can never 
come a time when science will be able to dis- 
pense with the services of philosophy. 

Instead of science dethroning philosophy, as 



RELIGION AND PK OGRESS. 61 

is sometimes supposed, there exists, in view of 
our increasing scientific knowledge, the greater 
reason why philosophy should remain, as of old, 
the supreme arbiter and ultimate court of ap- 
peal.^ Indeed, if we examine carefully the uses 
performed by philosophy, we cannot but be for- 
cibly impressed by the fact that, while the dis- 
coveries of science improve man's physical con- 
dition, it is only when philosophy steps in and 

* " We cannot justify the processes by which we in- 
terpret nature, unless we scrutinize the processes of the 
human spirit which performs them, and search after the 
principles and faiths which these processes assume and 
rest upon. We cannot discover and vindicate the grounds 
on wliich our inquiries rest, without finding them im- 
bedded in man's being as axioms and principles whicli, as 
the result of further scrutiny, we find that he can neither 
question nor set aside. Tlie foundations of the science 
of nature, in the last analysis, are discovered in the 
ineradicable beliefs and convictions of the human spirit, 
and it is only by the earnest and careful study of this 
spirit that we can find them, and, having found them, 
can recognize them as the principles by which we inter- 
pret both nature and man." — '* The Sciences of Nature 
versus the AScie?7ce of Man,-^ hy Noah Porter^ D.D.^ LL.D.^ 
President of Yale College, 



62 RELIGION AKD PROGRESS. 

encourages tlie thirst for fresh truth, that we 
realize the greatness of man's destiny and the 
possibilities of human progress. It is possible 
that other pursuits may do more to increase our 
stock of positive knowledge ; but it is not pos- 
sible that the sciences of nature, without pliilos- 
ophy to furnish impulse and interpretation, can 
ever attain to their true dignity, or accomplish 
their designed purpose. In other words, while 
philosophy encourages the uses of science, it also 
supports the claims of religion; and thus, from 
its power of abstraction and its impartial esti- 
mate, is in a position to determine questions 
which the mere scientist or religionist will 
always foil to appreciate. 

As an eminent French writer has well said, 
"Whatever empirics and utilitarians may say on 
the subject, there are certainties apart from the 
experimental method, and there is a progress 
disconnected with brilliant or beneficent appli- 
cations. The mind of man may put forth its 
power in laboring in harmony v/ith reason, yet 
discover genuine truths in a sphere as far above 
that of laboratories and manuftictures as their 
sphere is above the region of the coarsest arts. 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 63 

In a word, there is a temple of liglit that un- 
folds its portals to the soul neither through cal- 
culation nor through experiment, which the soul 
nevertheless enters with authority and confi- 
dence, so long as it holds the consciousness of 
its sovereign prerogatives. When will professed 
scientists, better informed of the close connection 
between metaphysics and science,^ whence our 
modern knowledge of nature has sprung, better 
taught in the necessary laws that govern the 
conflict of reason with the vast unknown, con- 
fess that there are realities beyond those they 
attain? When will science, instead of the arro- 
gant indifierence it assumes in presence of phi- 
losophy, admit the fertility, beyond estimate, of 
the latter ? " f Let us admit that tlie school- 

* ** England's thinkers are aga'n beginning to see what 
they had only temporarily forgotten, — that the difficul- 
ties of metaphysics lie at the root of all science; that 
those difficulties can only be quieted by being resolved, 
and that, until they are resolved — positively whenever 
possible, but at any rate negatively — we are never as- 
sured that any knowledge, even physical, stands on solid 
foundations." — John Stuart Mill. 

+ *'Nature and Life," by Feruand Papillon. 



64 EELIOION AND PROGRESS. 

boy of the present day is better versed in 
science than Plato and Aristotle were, and the 
intrinsic greatness of these eminent philosophers 
still remains. We may smile at the absurdity 
of many of their physical speculations; but we 
cannot refuse to acknowledge their greatness as 
leaders in philosophy; we cannot repudiate the 
debt which we justly owe them. 

It is not because these intellectual giants have 
served, in some instances, to illustrate the weak- 
ness of human reason, that we should rush 
hastily to the conclusion that their philosophy 
has failed to accomplish its purposes. It is 
because, in their noble endeavors to j)ierce the 
darkness which surrounds the problem of human 
existence, they have set us an example Avhich 
we cannot imitate too closely, that we should 
admire, cherish, and venerate their memory. 
Their conclusions were sometimes derived from 
false premises, but the breadth of thought and 
nice discrimination which have immortalized the 
name of Athens can never cease to exercise a 
powerful influence over all earnest thinkers com- 
ing somewhat later in the dr.y, but dealing, like 
their illustrious predecessors, with the problems 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 65 

of life and mind. Nor can it be said that this 
view of the relationship between religion, sci- 
ence, and philosophy in any way militates against 
that progressive spirit which we regard as so 
hopeful a characteristic of the present age. Cer- 
tainly the line of reasoning which rests on the 
premises of such a relationship is necessarily 
opposed to that unscientific spirit which mis- 
takes the antagonism between science and the- 
ology for a conflict of principles between science 
and religion. In assuming this position, how- 
ever, there is not the slightest encouragement 
given to anything opposed to the advancement 
of reason. Whatever may be said in support 
of religion as a civilizing power, it cannot be 
denied that, in the absence of reason to en- 
lighten and direct its movements, it invariably 
degenerates into ignorance and superstition. 
While we recognize the powerful influence 
which religion exercises on the formation of 
character, and its immense importance as a pro- 
vision meeting the needs of humanity, it is 
useless to conceal the fact that it is only useful 
in so far as it is regulated by reason. By all 
means, therefore, let us emphasize the claims of 



66 KELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

reason, and insist on the riglit of nnrestricted 
researcli and discussion ; but let us at tlie same 
time remember tliat, altliougli we cannot liave 
progress without change, we may liave change 
without progress. It is one thing to cultivate 
a scientific spirit subject to the guidance of phi- 
losophy, but it is quite another to render science 
unscientific by indulging in an iconoclastic spirit, 
which very often destroys much that is useful 
and true, because it seems, for the moment, 
opposed to the demands of a hasty and imper- 
fect generalization. It is a duty which we owe 
to the cause of truth, to acknowledge our 
immense debt to science; but it is equally a 
duty which we owe to the higher interests of 
humanity, to enter our protest against that false 
estimate which refuses to recognize religion oth- 
erwise than as an efi*ete relic of a superstitious 
past. 

Indeed, the more carefully we examine the 
evidences furnished us by the general tendency 
of scientific thought, the more clearly will it 
appear that it is precisely at this point that we 
encounter our real danger. As the matter now 
stands, and in view of the increased facilities 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 67 

for promoting knowledge, there is little or no 
danger that the human mind will ever relapse 
into the intellectual torpor of the middle ages ; 
but there is some danger that we may err in 
the other direction, and, by too exclusive an 
intellectual culture, underestimate the value of 
those finer sensibilities which, although inca- 
pable of being reduced to the exactness of an 
algebraic problem, are nevertheless important 
elements in the development of human na- 
ture and the education of the world. In other 
words, it becomes a necessity in dealing with 
the mixed problems of religion, science, and 
philosophy, to remember, above all other consid- 
erations, that the ultimate verities of religion 
are resolvable not into the subtleties of theo- 
logical speculation, but into certain fundamental 
principles inhering in human nature, and sub- 
ject to modification, but not destruction, under 
the advancement of knowledge. To meet the 
exigencies of the time, we need to recognize 
that our spiritiial culture depends not on what 
creeds we profess, but on that larger and simpler 
faith which recognizes, above all otlier consid- 
erations, the parental character of God, — a faith, 



68 RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

indeed, for which there seems no language so 
appropriate as the siibhme exclamation first ut- 
tered during the solitude and agony of Geth- 
semane.*^ 

It is a necessary condition of progress that 
science and philosophy should gradually change 
the character of our creeds, but we may rest 
assured we can never attain an intellectual 
status which will preclude the necessity of har- 
monizing this utterance of the Saviour with 
the greatest achievements of science and phi- 
losophy. Kising in their grand simplicity above 
the darkness of that memorable hour, these 
words of the Saviour's not -only reach, by their 
recognition of the supremacy of law, beyond 
the possibilities of scientific thought; they also 
invest with a deep and indestructible meaning, 
that sense of dependence which constitutes the 
basis of religion. In one sense, the idea sug- 
gested by these memorable words is in perfect 
harmony with the experience of every one who 
has attempted to fathom the mystery of his own 
being, and, at the same time, understand the 
limitations by which he is surrounded : 

* '*Thy will be done." — Matthew, xxvi. 42. 



PuELiaiON AND PKOaKESS. 69 

''But what am I? 
An infant crying in the night; 
An infant crying for the light; 
And with no language but a cry." 

In another sense, and that, perhaps, the most 
important, it suggests the universality of cer- 
tain spiritual laws, no less than the existence 
of those physical laws which guide the planets 
in their courses, and regulate the alternations 
of the seasons. The glory of man's existence 
consists in his power of thought ; but without 
the coordinate influence of sentiment to beau- 
tify the world and elicit our finer traits of 
character, w^e should certainly miss much that 
gives a healthy stimulus to progress, we should 
certainly fail to appreciate the soundness of St. 
Paul's reasoning when he assigned to charity 
the first place among the cardinal virtues. 

It is frequently said by the followers of Aii- 
guste Comte, that the human race, conceived 
as a whole, is a concrete existence ; and if we 
accept the proposition as indicating a condi- 
tion of general progress toward perfection, it 
is undoubtedly a true one. 

There is a sense in which the present ncccs- 



TO KELICxIOX AND PKOGPwESS. 

sarily derives its cliaracter from the past, — a 
sense in which the future will necessarily be 
the result of the present ; but if we allow our- 
selves to be governed in our views solely by the 
intellectual filiation of mankindj we shall cer- 
tainly fail to appreciate the law of continuity 
as fully as it deserves. In the dreams, hopes, 
and aspirations of the human spirit, there is no 
less a law of continnity than in the intellectual 
development of the race. 

By studying carefully the growth of the re- 
ligions instinct, we cannot but be forcibly im- 
pressed by the gradually ascending steps by 
means of which the linman soul has passed 
throngh the experiences of Fetishism, Polythe- 
ism, Monotheism, Spiritualism, Idealism, and 
Christianity; until, at the present moment, the 
best minds are striving for a philosophical rec- 
ognition of some common ground on which, as 
in a Field of the C!cth of Gold, all the relig- 
ious aspirations of humanity may meet, and, in 
their meeting, beautify and support each other. 
The true principles of progress consist not in 
destroying the faiths of humanity, but in so far 
hannonizing science and religion, that we may 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 71 

realize, in tlie liglit of an enlarged philosophy, 
the truth of Virgil's beautiful lines : 

^'They leave, at length, the nether gloom, and stand 
Before the- portals of a better land : 
To happier plains they come, and fairer groves, 
The seats of those whom heaven, benignant, loves. 
A brighter day, a bluer ether, spreads 
Its lucid depths above their favored heads; 
And, purged from mists that veil our earthly skies, 
Shine sun and stars unseen by mortal eyes." 

Possibly, or even probably, we may have to 
pass through many trials and witness many 
changes before we can attain so desirable a con- 
dition as that described by the Latin poet; but 
this is no reason why it should be considered 
absolutely unattainable. If there is one thing 
taught more clearly than another by the philos- 
ophy of history, it is that the world is slowly, 
but surely, approaching that synthesis between 
religion and science on which the argument of 
this essay essentially rests. Human society, laws, 
languages, and all the wonderful attainments of 
science and art, are all but so many evidences 
that tlic religious phenomena of the worhl, 
besides being an indispensable necessity, are, 



72 RELIGION AND PEOGBESS. 

equally with tlie laws of the physical world, 
the result of an Infinite Intelligence who " sees 
the end from the beginning." If, as Cousin 
says, " History is the manifestation of God's su- 
pervision of humanity, and the judgments of 
history are the judgments of God," there is no 
escape from the conclusion that the Divine pre- 
science which endowed man with his religious 
characteristics must evidently have designed that 
they should be capable of adaptation to every 
successive intellectual advance, and also that the 
fairest fruits of religion should be those borne 
under the brightest sunshine of intelligence. 
In the spiritual, as in the material world, life 
and light invariably go together; and, therefore, 
it is the merest fallacy to suppose that the ad- 
vancement of reason can ever destroy the truths 
of religion. As Baring Gould has well said, 
" The philosopher is impressed with a desire to 
separate reason from faiih, and put it by itself 
apart, and then erect it into a totality excluding 
and annihilating faith. I have shown that such 
an attempt inevitably breaks down. The theo- 
logian, on the other hand, endeavors to oppose 
authority to reason, to make all demonstration 



RELIGION AND PROGKESS. 16 

deductive, to erect revelation into a fatal crite- 
rion of all truths. His attempt must result in 
a revolt of the intellect. If we look about for 
a simple and indecomposible idea which may 
harmonize these complex terms, and serve as the 
proportional mean between them, we shall find 
it in the idea of the indefinite, or that which 
is incessantly defining itself without being ever 
completely successful, and which has, therefore, 
two faces, — one intelligible to reason, the other 
accessible to the sentiment by faith. Religion 
and philosophy are not two contradictoiy sys* 
tems, but are the positive and negative poles, 
of which the axis, uniting and conciliating them, 
is the idea of the indefinite, which, expressing 
two complex terms, the body and the spirit, the 
finite and the infinite, represents the constitu- 
tive and fundamental nature of man." Let it 
be granted that the world moves intellectually 
as well as physically, and there will still remain 
a sense in which religion must ever stand as 
the representative of man's highest and purest 
aspirations ; there must always remain a sense in 
which we are bound to recognize that man's 
restless thirst after knowledge is not the only 
4 



74 RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

condition essential to human progress. The in- 
terests of Religion demand neither a sacrifice of 
om' intellectual powers, nor the encouragement 
of superstition against the demonstrations of rea- 
son. The cause of Progress demands no blind 
adhesion to theories hastily propounded in the 
name of science. 

For the interests both of religion and science, 
we need freedom of investigation, but we are 
sadly mistaken if we suppose that Ave can safely 
avoid that philosophical insight and discrimina> 
tion, which, without depreciating in the least the 
claims of science, enables us to coc)rdinate the 
laws revealed in nature with that higher law 
which embraces man's spiritual consciousness, 
and deals with the principles of righteousness 
and love. The foundations of religion rest on 
the consciousness of our relation to God, and it 
is, therefore, simply impossible to imagine a 
period in the history of human progress when a 
factor so absolutely indispensable shall have lost 
its position and importance. During the child- 
hood of the world, man projected his individ- 
uality into the objects of nature; he believed 
that the sun, moon, and stars were living beings 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 75 

endowed witli greater strength tlian his own, 
and he worshipped them accordingly. 

Feeling that there was, betw^een nature and 
himself, a strange but powerful bond of connec- 
tion, it was but natural that man should invest 
all natural phenomena with the qualities of per- 
sonality more or less resembling his own. At 
this stage of human existence, the conditions 
were precisely those which we see repeated in 
the life and development of every child. 

The first explanation which children give to 
everything is invariably the human explanation, 
investing, indeed, with the qualities of life and 
personality even the most inanimate objects, and 
believing, with all earnestness and sincerity, that 
chairs and wooden horses are actuated by the 
same sort of personal will as nurses and chil- 
dren and kittens. In the case of the child, as 
in the case of the untutored adult, the condi- 
tions are valuable as representing the inherent 
tendency of human consciousness. 

They may or may not prove the reliability of 
the instinct which seeks everywhere for the 
evidences of a personal God, but they do prove 
that there is a vast substratum of human feel- 



76 



KELIGION AND PROGRESS, 



ing which we cannot ignore in entering into 
the philosophy of rehgiou ; they do prove, not- 
withstanding the grotesque character of many of 
these nature-myths, 

''That ia all ages 
Every heart is human; 
That in even savage bosoms 
There are longings, yearnings, strivings, 
For the good they comprehend not; 
That the feeble hands and helpless, 
Groping blindly in the darkness, 
Trust God's right hand in that darkness, 
And are lifted up and strengthened." 

Leaving behind us the simpler faith which 
these nature-myths represent, and realizing more 
and more the universality and supremacy of 
law, let us, therefore, never forget, no matter 
how indistinct the utterance, that these early 
manifestations of human consciousness express 
certain fundamental principles which science and 
philosophy are bound to recognize and provide 
for. 

As we boldly explore the '' outer world," voy- 
aging away from Troy and Greece even further 
than Ulysses went, we will undoubtedly discover 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 77 

fresh evidences of the greatness and future pos- 
sibilities of the human mind ; but we may safely 
depend upon it, after every allowance has been 
made for the advancement of reason, that we 
shall never cultivate the true principles of prog- 
ress until we have realized the immense value 
of those lispings and stammerings of the human 
soul which nothing but "the beauty of holiness" 
can satisfy. In other words, it is not too much 
to say that, even if it were possible for science 
to exhaust the arcana of nature, leaving nothing 
to be desired or discovered, it would still re- 
main a solemn and indestructible fact that the 
most enlarged scientific culture is inadequate to 
the demands of man's religious consciousness. 
It is perfectly true that science enables us to 
trace the evidences of those wonderful adapta- 
tions which give to the term Nature such an 
inexhaustible meaning; but it is equally true 
that the cultivation of our finer sensibilities 
introduces us into a realm wherein we realize 
tlie beauty of those spiritual conditions which 
render it strictly true that it is only the pure 
in heart who see God. The scientific knowl- 
edge which has enabled us to measure the 



78 RELIGION AND PROGEESS. 

heavens, to descend into the depths of the 
earth, to mitigate suffering, and to prolong life, 
is unquestionably of the greatest value and im- 
portance, both as a means for facilitating the 
triumph of mind over matter, and also as an 
indispensable condition in helping forward the 
progress of the human race. In admitting this, 
however, let us not den}^ that there is an equal 
claim to be urged on behalf of that higher con- 
sciousness which brings us face to face with the 
stern realities of life and eternity. While we 
yield our willing admiration to the earnest stu- 
dent of nature, and rejoice with him in his ex- 
ultation over every newly discovered tnith, there 
is nothing irrational or inconsistent in our kneel- 
ing with the devout religionist, under a con- 
sciousness of that awful mystery of evil which 
besets, perplexes, and overshadows us in our 
efforts to cultivate a noble life, — that strange 
and startling contrariety in man's nature which 
induced even Faust to exclaim, when about to 
surrender himself to the tempter: 

''Two souls, alas! are lodged within my breast, 
Which struggle there for undivided reign: 
One to the world, with obstinate desire, 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 79 

And closely cleaving organs, still adheres. 
Above the mist the other doth aspire, 
With sacred vehemence, to purer spheres." 

Indeed, it is tliis fearful struggle between 
man's higher and lower nature which gives 
to religion its grandest meaning; it is this 
which demonstrates its usefulness and value 
as an elevating and purifying influence ; it is 
this tremendous conflict between the powers 
of darkness and the powers of light, which 
gives such significance to that '' cry of the 
human," so easily detected under all condi- 
tions of religious speculation, and which, be- 
cause it also permeates and vitalizes our 
own religious consciousness, gives meaning and 
beauty to the familiar hymn, "Nearer, my God, 
to Thee." 

It is a fact beyond dispute, that ^^^'ogress de- 
pends primarily on reason ; but it is no less a 
fact tliat the future greatness of Philosophy will 
very largely depend upon its ability to harmo- 
nize the claims of science and religion. 

Without in the least disparaging the claims of 
science, it is high time that philosophy entered 
on this work of coordination and reconciliation. 



80 RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

Besides, in addition to the argument derived 
from the underlying reality of spiritual phe- 
nomena, it is obviously a false and dangerous 
mode of reasoning which would regard every- 
thing old as likely to be wrong, and everything 
new as likely to be right. The world moves 
surely, it is true; but it is the merest folly to 
suppose that the religious hopes and aspirations 
which have filled the past with so many sacred 
memories and associations, can ever cease to 
exercise an important function, even under the 
grandest attainments of science and philosophy. 
In fact, as we look back into the past, and 
carefully study the intellectual and spiritual 
filiation of mankind, it is not unreasonable to 
urge — accepting Newton and St. Francis of 
Assisi as representative examples — that there is 
a sense in which the purity of the saint is 
ec[ual to the genius of the astronomer. It is 
impossible to think of JS^ewton without feel- 
ing amazed at the greatness of the human 
mind; but it is equally impossible to think of 
the pure and gentle St. Francis without feel- 
ing that there is a beauty in religion wliicli 
we can ill afford to lose. We need science 



RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 81 

and pliilosopliy for tlie enlargement and growth 
of the human intellect; bnt we also need re- 
lio-ion to sustain us in our moments of dark- 
ness, to elevate and purify our desires, and 
to encourage and strengthen us in our conflict 
with that mystery of evil which gives such 
solemn significance to the problem of human 
life. In other w^ords, the fruit of the tree 
of knowledge may indeed make us like gods, 
knowing good and evil ; but it is only by par- 
taking of the fruit of the tree of life that we 
can satisfy the demands of our higher nature, 
at the same time entering into a foretaste of 
the joys of Paradise, and preparing ourselves 
for that better life which aw^aits us on the 
other side of the grave. 

*^Down below, imaginations quivering 

Through our human spirits like the wind, 
Thoughts that toss like leaves upon the woodland, 
Hopes like sea-birds flashed across the mind ; 

**Down below, a sad, mysterious music, 

Wailing through the woods and on the shore. 
Burdened with a grand, majestic secret. 
That keeps sweeping from us evermore. 



82 RELIGION AND PROGRESS. 

*'Up above, a music that entwineth. 

With eternal threads of gohlen sound, 
The great poem of this strange existence. 

All whose wondrous meaning hath been found/' 



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